>if you are an American and you can point at New Zealand on a map or even point at the correct ocean, they'll let you onto their planes in cattle class if you pay for the ticket

On his retirement in the early 1960s my grandfather went on a world trip that included the US. He found that many Americans didn't know where Australia was, but for some curious reason they had an idea of New Zealand's whereabouts, so he used to say "Oh, Australia's a small island on the west coast of NZ".

By the way, QANTAS is sometimes referred to here as "Quaint-Ass". If you don't want to fly with them, you can "Fly Ansett and Chance It".

Americans' ignorance of New ZealandYou think that's bad (so do I). I have to confess with shame that at least 40 percent of my fellow citizens could not tell you where Manitoba or Alberta are. The average American knows no more about Canada than he does about Zild or Oz and that ain't much. As to someplace like Chad, or Bhutan, they don't even know there is such a place.

>As to someplace like Chad, or Bhutan, they don't even know there is such a place.

Oh, I think they've heard enough about chad recently to wonder why you'd name a country after one.

But seriously, if what you say is true, it's a sad reflection on a tendency towards introspection that must be commonplace in the education system (e.g. geography and history teaching) and in the media, to name a couple of institutions.

I suppose we are all familiar with the trade names which have entered the language as words, such as "xerox" for "photocopier", "kleenex" for "disposable tissue", "coke" for "cola-flavored soda", etc-------------------------------------------------------\Dear Boby, When you are going beddy-bye tonight, pray that the omnipresent Legal Eagles from (all) those companies are not reading the Board! I recall that when I was working for a small weekly a story with the word coke (small c) got past a harried editorthe paper got a package from Coca Cola regarding its copyrighted names including Coke along with several legal citations upholding the company's right to the names!!When the reporter's birthday came along guess what we bought him a case of?wow

a sad reflection on a tendency towards introspection that must be commonplace in the education system (e.g. geography and history teaching)

Oh, it's true. The Cincinnati Enquirer recently published some history test that was given to college students and, if I remember correctly, most of them weren't able to pass it. Most couldn't even identify the decade in which the Civil War occured! History and geography are two of my favorite subjects, but most schools don't see these as fundamentally important to the educational process. My classmates were amazed that I knew on what island Napoleon was born. I can't see the students at my school scoring this poorly on a history test because I consider most of them fairly intelligent (middle class suburban school district) but I'm not sure.

Grade inflation is also definitely a problem. When 70% (I'm not sure of the actual percentage) of the students in your school are on the honor roll, there's a problem. And it doesn't seem right to me that we have students who haven't taken a single honors course in their entire 4 years in high school who are in the National Honor Society.

Oh, Honey, I want to give you a stinging comeback for that!Standard Oil also became Chevron, with the appropriate logo.

I never did know why Sinclair gasoline had a dinosaur logo,but I can still "hear" that theme song that was on the radio every morning: Sinclair puts that nickel in, puts that magic(?) nickel in, only Sinclair gasoline has nickel, nickel, nickel.

>>Some years ago the Standard Oil co. which produced gasoline under the name "Esso"...

>Standard Oil also became Chevron...

for the record, in 1911 J.D. Rockerfeller's Standard Oil Trust was broken up into something like 32 small companies. the major players left standing today include Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso/Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Socony/Mobil), Standard Oil [California] (Chevron), Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio, arm of BP), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco), Continental Oil (Conoco), and Atlantic Richfield (ARCO). Each of these could market under the Standard brand in its respective region, but when they started to challenge each other regionally, and later nationally, they had to change brand names to avoid lawsuits. in our region, the Standard name came down, and became Amoco, although the logo looked the same otherwise.

I can't see the students at my school scoring this poorly on a history test because I consider most of them fairly intelligent (middle class suburban school district) but I'm not sure.

Sorry, this is my King Charles the First's head. Ignorance and lack of intelligence are not the same thing.

This may or may not be an apocryphal story, but apparently after a very long and complicated explanation of some knotty technical point from one of the counsel in a trial, the judge said "I'm sorry, but I'm none the wiser", to which the lawyer replied "No my Lord, but a great deal better informed."

The students at your school may be better informed than the average, but that doesn't make them any more intelligent than people who haven't had the same quality of instruction. [/rant]

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